


No Poison In My Bones

by anneapocalypse



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3579264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Tex left Blood Gulch but never crashed at Valhalla. This time it's Tex who lives, and learns to let go. An admittedly bittersweet but in the end still happy RvB Happy Hour fic, for <a href="http://tmblr.co/m2OAj1vhBCoCfIrjjN_z7bA">falling-towards-the-sky</a> who asked for Tex + Home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Poison In My Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Ellie Goulding's ["Home"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGnO5tCIVI0) and some things from Trocadero's ["A Girl Named Tex"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsbyYJ4LCiA) and queseraawesome's [awesome headcanon](http://queseraawesome.tumblr.com/post/109345854905/anneapocalypse-replied-to-your-post-todays#notes) about Allison's full name and also the book _The Adoration of Jenna Fox_. 
> 
> Warning for mention of some negative body image type stuff.

At the end of the day Tex has dirt on her knuckles and under her fingernails and smudged on her face, a smear of grease over one cheekbone that lends her a comfortable asymmetry. Makes her smile, a lopsided smirk she has perfected for the same reason.

They’ve made a lot of advancements in biosynthetics in the years following the war. She can wash the grit of a hard day’s work from hands damn close to real, strong fingers with blunt nails and rough cuticles and real one-of-a-kind whorls in the pads of each.

There is a face in the mirror, now, not just a black helmet. Fuckin’ fancy that. A real live girl.

Took a long time. Money wasn’t a problem, she’s always been good at making money. But to do the research, find the right people. People who could get her the modifications she wanted—and then be either paid or threatened to keep quiet, if necessary. Things are better for AIs now than ever before, but she’s not exactly typical. She doesn’t think of herself as an AI, that’s the problem. Most smarts she’s met identify that way and they’re comfortable with that and don’t have any desire for anything else. “Dumb” and “smart” are becoming not the preferred terminology or so she hears but there isn’t really a consensus yet on what people should say instead ( _static_ and  _dynamic_ ,  _process-based_ and  _pathway-based_ , she’s heard a few) and anyway Tex doesn’t really fall into either of those, doesn’t really have a classification beyond the knowledge that any attempts to replicate the process by which she came into existence are now illegal and punishable by prison time in all UNSC-controlled territories.

So, she’s illegal, is what she is, but what the fuck else is new. Not like her construction buddies would care even if they did know. To them, she’s just Tex. Not Allison anymore. Not Beth either. Not even Agent Texas. Tex, she says. Just Tex. And no, fuck you, it’s not a guy’s name. It’s my name.

Tex scrubs her hands good with the bar of lava soap Shelly keeps in the diner restroom for the construction crew when they wander in just after five. Leaves her face be, redoes her ponytail instead.

She is not tired, not exactly, but there’s a fatigue in her limbs she finds comforting, one she wouldn’t have felt back in Freelancer. Started hitting her in Blood Gulch, joints creaking, couldn’t lift what she used to. Shit breaks down. What makes us human, somebody she knew once would’ve said.

At first she wanted to make it right the way it was in her head, reconstruct the sense she had of herself in the days before the dissonance broke and she realized, in a roil of confusion and panic, that she’d never taken her helmet off, and where had the face she remembered come from? What were the hands she felt beneath her black gloves, the body she was certain she had, though she had never been out of armor? So she built herself around that, best she could. But the damn video kept flickering to life in her mind, trapped in her unfortunately vivid memory, jarring against the image she had of herself. Too close, not close enough, making its own dissonance. She didn’t want this. Didn’t want to be  _her_.

So she kept changing things. The shape of her eyes, the color of her hair, the angle of her jawline. Too close, not close enough. There were days she couldn’t stand to look at herself in the mirror, mornings she woke in a cold sweat with her synthetic skin crawling for no reason. Moments she wanted to rip it all off and give up, go back to being a faceless suit of armor.

But this isn’t Blood Gulch, and there is no spare robot kit lying around like a god damn plot device in her studio apartment. Just a specialist in the city who does what she asks and keeps her off the books, for a price.

Tex grins to herself, remembering Sarge and his workshop littered with robot parts, Simmons with his cybernetic implants, the gleam of his mechanical eye that always made her feel, secretly, a little more at home.

Hell, maybe she will go back one of these days. She sure thinks about it. Wonder if they’d even still be there, or off on some wild adventure, though they always do seem to make it home again. Be good to see them again. Heh. Bunch of idiots. But her idiots. It’s been a long time but she always did feel like they’d welcome her back no matter how long she’d been away. Wonder if Junior found his way back from Sanghelios. Wonder if Grif’s still requisitioning Oreos. Wonder if that Grif sister is still around. Always did like her.

It was all over the news how the program finally went under, though Tex figures that isn’t the whole story or anything close to it. Hell of a thing, all the same. The shock of seeing that bright aquamarine armor front and center on the vids, you could’ve knocked her over with a stiff breeze. And those yellow accents on that blue armor hiding in the background… Both of them alive. How, Tex doesn’t know, and probably never will. Knows damn well she’s the last person in the galaxy Carolina would want to see, and she’s learned to be all right with that. Just knowing she made it sets something right, deep down. Not everything, but a lot.

Church wasn’t in the photo. Tex isn’t sure what that means. Isn’t sure she ought to think about it too hard. She cares, sure. Hard not to. But she hasn’t spent these years getting herself right to go back to living for someone else. Hope he found some peace, one way or another, and that’s the best she can do for it.

Tex wipes her hands carelessly on her dungarees, tests her smile one more time in the mirror and saunters out into the lively little greasy spoon where she eats most nights with the crew. Swings into her usual seat at the counter between Rourke and Hanners, and Shelly slides her a piece of apple pie before she even asks and Tex grins for real.

Home, at the end of the day, feels like this, no matter where in the galaxy you find to stomp off your boots. Just feeling right in your own skin, for a change.


End file.
